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As Principal, I’m often asked by parents and carers why we do what we do as a school. Why children are placed in particular classes? How do we manage challenging behaviours, why we send children home? There are more but I would like to take the time as part of today’s newsletter to share the processes we go through before we send a sick child home.
Ideally, we would like to see all children at school as much as they possibly can be, attendance is one of the best ways to ensure your child is learning. There are, however, times when it is not appropriate for them to be at school. Over the last two weeks a high number of children and staff have picked up a vomiting bug that seems to be going through the community. When illnesses like this are about, we are required to do the best thing for all children and that includes sending them home. We are very aware of how difficult that is for many parents, especially for those who work, and we don’t make this decision lightly. The children play a very big role in the decisions we make. When they are vomiting or running a temperature it’s very clear that they are unwell, and we make our decision based on this.
Unfortunately, in the COVID world we now live in we must be super vigilant around coughs, colds, runny noses, upset tummies, all the ills that children complain about. The messaging from Public Health is very clear, if you are sick or unwell, please stay home. We all have a responsibility to those around us not to be passing our illnesses on. Sometimes though children will make the most of this and claim to be unwell when they aren’t. If we can see this is the case then we carefully and respectfully ask questions to identify if it’s a genuine illness – have you had enough water today? How long have you been feeling like this? Do you think you can eat a little bit and see if this makes you feel better. Class teachers will observe children and also try to determine if they are genuinely ill before sending them to the office.
The last thing we want to do is take you away from your place of work to collect a child who is perfectly fine once they get home but children aren’t always honest and it is not our right to challenge them unnecessarily or keep them at school to make other children or staff unwell. In the end we have to be guided by what the child says and how they behave and that means sending them home. Imagine how disappointed you would be if your sick child wasn’t believed or if your son or daughter became ill because another student stayed at school when they were obviously unwell.
We can’t always pick when a child is genuinely ill but please be assured we will do everything we can to ensure they are telling the truth before we make that call.
It has been a successful start to the year in Kinder O’Neill with lots of excitement, big smiles and brave faces. We have been developing our social skills and awareness of routines through play and collaborative activities. To remind ourselves of the expectations at school, we created Our Class Promise which we signed with our handprints.
We have also started to explore our inquiry question for this term which is, “who am I?”. To start our exploration, we spoke about facial features and what we see when we look in a mirror. We all drew self-portraits and spent time colouring them carefully. Our self-portraits are on display in the hallway if you would like to see them!
Community and team building in 1/2A. We rolled a ball of wool to people in the circle and practised their name. There was lots of problem solving as Ms Balhatchet’s wool was a little bit knotty. When we made our web of friends, we moved the beautiful design/creation up and down.
At Springfield Gardens Primary School this year, we have implemented a new Literacy Program across the school. The Program is called Playberry Laser T1-2 and is an evidence informed program for primary school students. The program has a large emphasis on decoding and spelling but also supports reading comprehension and expressive writing. Multisensory learning is part of the effectiveness of the program and keeps students engaged as they see, say, hear and do.
Over the last two weeks classes have enjoyed getting to know and practice the routines and content of the program while participating in morning lessons as a whole class. We have included some parent information from the program creators for those who would like to gain further understanding of the program and terminology used, this may also help with conversations at home regarding the program.
Here are some comments from Prep students during a Playberry lesson:
“Word work is fun” Noah “I did it!” Ronin
“I like Playberry” Parisa “Yay word work time!” Prishu
“It’s fun learning it” Elijah “I can do it!” Brodyn
Dear Parent/Guardian
Our School will be switching over to a new messaging platform for communicating with you. This will replace our current system.
The new platform, called EdSmart is an Australian platform which is designed to improve communication in school communities by allowing electronic messaging i.e. SMS and emails. For now, it will be used to manage absences messages i.e. you will receive a SMS or email alert if your child is absent from school requesting a response. It will also allow us to send a communication message to all parent/guardians.
The platform will, over time, be rolled out across all Tasmanian Government Schools and new features will be added.
You will receive a text message and/or an email with further details. Note, the text message sender will be a shortened version of our school’s name - Please keep an eye out for it!
Further information is available on the Department’s website
On Tuesday the 5th of March we will be having our school year 3-6 athletics carnival. The carnival will be held on our school oval beginning just after recess at approximately 11.10am. Students are encouraged to wear their house colours and bring their team spirit! Spectators are welcome.
